The surveillance body for the Swiss financial markets has opened an investigation into the role of Banque Privée Espírito Santo, led by José Manuel Espírito Santo and its role in the selling of Espírito Santo Group debt.
According to the Swiss press an inquiry was announced on Wednesday by FINMA which will look at whether the Banque Privée Espírito Santo, a branch of Espírito Santo Group, lawfully managed its customers' portfolios while loading them with investments in Espírito Santo companies.
FINMA also will be checking whether there was undue influence in play from the owners of the bank chaired by José Manuel Espírito Santo and whether any financial crimes have occurred in Switzerland.
Banque Privée Espírito Santo this week kindly offered its customers just 2% of the money they had invested in Espírito Santo International. Banque Privée Espírito Santo currently is in voluntary liquidation and should close in 2015.
Another Swiss financial company with links to shifting now worthless Espírito Santo Group paper is Eurofin which has announced that a third of its employees are being laid off.
The 40 workers are the first victims of the scandal that has plagued the company which bundled up Espírito Santo Group shares and bonds and sold them on to unwitting customers through the BES branch network.
"The media pressure has been difficult to manage for a company the size of Eurofin services," bleated its director-general, Alexander Cadosh, adding that he is not aware of any lawsuit against Eurofin either in Switzerland or in Portugal - he soon will be.
Back in Portugal a forum has been held in Evora about BES and its rescue and made clear that the party does not expect another Government whitewash as in the swaps scandal and the Viana de Castelo shipyards skulduggery which saw the government bend the rules to achieve a blameless status.
Socialist Pedro Filipe Soares said "We want everything to be clear: information leaks, the haggling and the choices that were on the table" when the Government decided to commit public money in the rescue operation to BES.
"Nothing can remain hidden," said a hopeful Left Bloc MP which considered it "essential" that the commission of enquiry clarifies "everything that happened to BES, the financial holes that have been found, and the relationship between BES and GES.”
Vítor Bento, new boss of Novo Banco, formely BES, said today that he has started the preparation of his strategic plan and his desire to keep "Novo Banco as a cornerstone of the Portuguese financial landscape."
Bento intends that the plan will reflect a vision for Novo Banco which is to have "sustained revenue growth, improved business productivity and support functions in an efficient use of resources and optimisation of capital," according to a letter to staff leaked today.
This letter follows the meeting held between Novo Banco managers and the Bank of Portugal.
Bento can assure his staff that all will be well but his real aim is to sell Novo Banco as soon as possible. The Bank of Portugal already has hired BNP Paribas to look at buyers for Bento’s new toy and exploratory talks have started with suitors.
The problem with selling the bank is that it owes the taxpayer in excess of €10 billion which is in excess of its net worth.
